Victoria M. De Francesco Soto

B.A. in Political Science & Latin American Studies, University of Arizona

Political Psychology Summer Institute, Stanford University

ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research, University of Michigan

Research Areas

Campaigns & Elections

Immigration

Women & Politics

Teaching Areas

Social Policy

Victoria is a Lecturer at the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs where she was selected as one of the University’s Game Changing faculty. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Department of Mexican-American and Latino Studies and the Center for Mexican American Studies. Victoria received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University during which time she was a National Science Foundation Fellow. Named one of the top 12 scholars in the country by Diverse magazine Victoria previously taught at Northwestern University and Rutgers.

In her research and teaching Victoria brings an interdisciplinary lens to the understanding of American politics and policy. Her areas of expertise include immigration, women and politics, political psychology, and campaigns and elections.

Victoria is a contributor to MSNBC and NBCNews.com as well as a regular political analyst for Telemundo. She has previously provided on-air analysis for CNN, Fox, PBS, Univision, NPR and has appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Most recently Victoria was a featured expert in the PBS documentary of the Civil Rights Trailblazer, Willie Velasquez in, Your Vote is Your Voice. Victoria is also published in both academic and popular outlets such as POLITICO, Talking Points Memo, and Perspectives on Politics. Through these different outlets, Victoria translates social science research into a more relatable form of information for a wide variety of audiences.

The Commerce Department said Monday that the 2020 U.S. Census would include a question about citizenship status, a decision prompting several states to threaten to sue the Trump administration. Victoria DeFrancesco Soto joins Morning Joe to discuss.